Category Archives: After treatment

Compassion, Cabbage & Cramps

Posted in After treatment, Bumpboobs, Life, Love by

Cramps suck! This morning as Zsolt and I were on a mission to buy organic free-range eggs from the local Loblaws, I began to feel a pressure inside my abdomen. At this point I distinctly remember passing a diner filled with Sunday-morning patrons, all of whom were enjoying the Sunday 3.95 breakfast. Zsolt was astonished that the restaurant was so crazy full, with more and more people coming down the sidewalk to go in, but I told him that in Canada breakfast is a big deal, and we honour this meal with a special Sunday observance and marked down menu prices. So we were off to get some eggs, and maybe a bag of rice because I bought a cabbage in the market yesterday for one dollar, so my mind is all, “you gotta make cabbage layer!” while my body is all: “you’re not going to do anything productive today!” and it let me know this just as we were passing a diner.

Anyhow, that’s when it started. I don’ t know about you, but I’ve got different sorts of periods aches . . . some are about a sore back, some are about the ovaries being tender, this one . . . I don’t know what it’s about, but I do know it’s damn painful.

Starting slowly, this pressure built up and up till by the time we’d crossed the intersection toward Loblaws, it was sharp and radiating from my front to back. Lord.

So I say to Zsolt: “we need to turn around.” And he offeres no protests – instead we turned around, and he rubs my back as we walk back toward the flat.

Finally we reach the flat and I’m relieved. Sometimes this stuff becomes so intense I think I might pass out, but then I never actually do pass out  – because I generally hit the bed in time. Actually, this threatening lack of consciousness is mostly about the anxiety, because when this radiating of pain starts to happen, I just think “What the frack is my body doing?!” And the worst starts to creep across my thoughts . . . so no matter how many deep breaths I’m trying to take, they all end up short and tense, thus the sensation of passing out. Basically, I have mini panic attacks because I don’t want to get sick again, and it’s hard to trust the body after the shit it put me through already.

On the other hand, if this is what it takes to have a baby and know the process is working – then okay, great. But who knows? I only hope.

Anyhow, we get back to the flat and here is the entire point to my post: We get back, and Zsolt is incredible. He puts on the kettle and gets out the hot water bottle as I crawl into bed. He makes me a cup of tea. He comes into the bedroom and rubs my back a little, then sits next to me as I clutch the water bottle and strokes my bare leg. Then after maybe an hour passes, he tops up my tea and defrosts the chicken soup – bringing it to me in bed on a tray.

Ah. Today my man took good care of me. I guess over the past several years, he’s learnt ‘how best to comfort my wife’ and when the pain was throwing me into panic, he was remaining calm and attentive. It was reassuring.

I really think that before medicine comes love. Love knows you’re scared, it sits with you, and it wraps you in its warmth. Today Zsolt was so very good at taking care of me, and I’m so very thankful for that.

As for the cramps, I’m not in pain like before but am totally knackered and rather uncomfortable. However, while at the grocery store today ( A different grocery store, not Loblaws and no organic eggs. This was much later in the day after several hours in bed I went to a friend’s place to watch people bake. Part of this experience involved going to the shop to get the missing ingredients),  my period cramps were thrown into perspective as the lady at the till was pregnant and suffering pregnancy pains. She was bending over and trying to breath, saying she felt like passing out. When I asked if the store couldn’t at least get her a stool, she said that she’d asked and they said they didn’t have one – so this women is checking out items and obviously suffering. Where was the love from her store? I don’t know and I’m sorry it was lacking. It just seemed totally wrong.

After that I decided that I’m lucky regardless of cramps or whatever; I’m just lucky to have been given what I needed when I needed it most. A little compassion goes a long, long way.

Regulation Thermography Testing

Posted in After treatment, Bumpboobs by

Let me tell you a story in the continuing adventures of my breasts. (Yeah, one of them was removed, but nevertheless I still feel that somehow I have two boobs. Weird, or what?) Okay, here it goes:

Last week I went off for some regulation thermography testing, which is screening based on body temperature – it essentially looks for areas of your body that are more hot or cold than would be expected, which could indicate an issue at play. Honestly there is debate on both sides of whether this is really effective screening. Some countries use it, others don’t, and I think recently thermography was studied as an alternative screening method to mammography (who by, I don’t remember, I read so many things) and wasn’t found significant enough with the results.

But frack all that, and you want to know why?

Because I’m down to yearly breast screenings. On top of this, no one seems to want to give me anything more than a mammogram. Forget that dense breasts don’t jive well with just mammogram screening – that’s only one point that really gets me frustrated. . . the even bigger annoyance is that this is radiation being shot repeatedly into an area of my body I already 100% know is vulnerable to cancer.

Boszky!

Sorry. I didn’t mean to go crazy, it’s just the lack of options – I mean good options that doctors are actually willing to prescribe without fear of it hurting the budget, are very limited.

Wow. I’m getting off track. Let’s try again. Last week I went for regulation thermography testing, because I wanted to peek in on the ladies and surrounding areas for an update. There’s a clinic in Carp that takes readings of your entire torso, and it’s quite interesting to see how the varying temperatures are interpreted.

What happens for this type of thermography testing? You don’t get light or heat shot through you, instead they take many, many, many temperature readings across many, many, many points on your body.

First, they get you cozy. I had a skirt on, so was given a blanket to wrap up in.

Then, they measure some points for temperature.

Next you take off your clothes and sit there in the cold. Well, you take off all your clothing minus some underwear. I borrowed Zsolt’s loose boxers for this occasion – they did the trick and didn’t cut off any circulation (since no tight clothes were allowed)

Once cooled, you temperature is taken again all over the place: point after point after point. I wonder if these correspond to acupuncture points?  Anyhow, once the test has finished, there’s a print out.

The technition said she needed to look at it in detail, but reviewing it quickly, she told me that my breast looks fine though it seems I’m having some kind of digestive reaction to something. Yeah, that just about sounds right, my GI has been messed up for a while and I’m still on the long road of fixing that up.

It was a good scan, and I’ll likely get it done again. I like that it’s non-invasive, not done in a hospital, and the lady was really compassionate. I like the results too – particularly that she noted my digestive issues. Now, of course, I’ll have to consider mammography, ultra sounds, MRIs etc in the future . . . but for now, I’m just glad to have been reviewed in a way that doesn’t leave a footprint on my body.

And that is the story of regulation thermography testing.

(P.S. It’s raining cats and dogs today, though my mom always points out that above the clouds the sun is shining, and we’re going to start packing our stuff tomorrow for next week’s move. We are getting outta my parent’s house. Happy days and exciting prospects ahead!)

(P.P.S. This entire post (and entire blog) is just a recounting of my personal experiences, not a recommendation of any kind for any sort of treatment, screening, whatever. I just wanted to share, is all. If you have questions, take them to a professional.)

(P.P.P.S I have a sense my storytelling was rather flat this post. Can we please blame that on the weather? Thanks.)

An absentminded mess

Posted in After treatment, Bumpboobs, Fun, Life, Travel by

We are on the train now, headed toward Pecs and leaving Balaton. For the past four days Zsolt and I have been enjoying a little lakeside R&R. Before that it was sweating in Budapest and late-night dance parties. I’ll tell you what. If you want to take a break from the cancer world because sometimes it becomes too overwhelming, there’s little better than going out to dance. One – you are in a state to not feel embarrassed since you know life is precious, and Two- it’s just a freaking fabulous workout.

So that was Budapest. Hot-hot days and comfortable nights in outdoor clubs. And work, of course, which happily follows me wherever there’s an internet connection.

But following this time away in Budapest, I have three little confessions to make . . . actually four – the last being less of a confession and more of a statement.

Number one: I burned the crap out of Zsolt’s mother’s pot here in Balaton. For the past couple weeks I have been in the mood to make tomatoe sauce with meatballs, particularly following this TED talk I watched about foods that kill cancer and – once again – was reminded that tomatoes warmed up are really great for an anti-cancer diet. Therefore I bought some liquid tomato and a can of chopped tomato while in Budapest and brought them down to Balaton. (No one in Budapest seemed to really want my tomato sauce and meatballs.  That’s because it’s just not part of a traditional Hungarian diet. However, Zsolt and I had some ‘alone time’ scheduled for the Balaton part of our travelling, so I deferred the cooking of the sauce until we arrived in Fonyod Ligit, which is a little village along the Balaton coast. And thank goodness I did.) Anyhow, I had the sauce cooking for a nice long time, made the meatballs in the frying pan then later transferred those into the sauce, and cooked everything together with delicious results.

So we’re eating this amazing sauce & meatball meal – and we’re (Zsolt and I) are like, “This is awesome. What’s that flavour? I don’t know what that flavour is? What did you put in it? I only put onions and basil and the meatballs. Maybe it’s from the meatballs? I did sear them pretty good, maybe it’s from the meatballs?”

Wrong. That awesome flavour was from the blackened bottom of that sauce pot. It took me two days to discover the burn and by then it was so set into the freaking pot that I’ve been trying to scrub it clean for the past day and a night. Sugar scrubbed into the dark ring has helped (using a newspaper) but not totally cleared away the mess. We had to catch this train, so I’ve stashed the pot in a far corner beneath the sink hoping that when his mother does discover the burnt patch remaining – because she 100% will discover it, and then she will ask: ‘Why did Catherine burn the pot?’ as though I had plotted to do this (and with the real answer being that I burn essentially every pot that I encounter while cooking)  . . . hopefully, by this time this happens, I’ll be well out of the country.

Not that she would get angry, but being asked ‘why’ I did something that I really couldn’t help is a pet-peeve of mine, and tends to send me into a sarcastic fit of annoyance  – replying with things like, “I burnt the pot because it was looking at me funny.” Or “I burnt the pot to add to the flavour” (apparently true in this case ) Or “I burnt the damn pot because I purposely wanted to damage it.”

Truth is, I’m just absent minded. Which brings me to the second confession.

Number Two – I lost my glasses! Bah. Gone! Poof. Where are they? If I knew that, they wouldn’t be lost. But one thing is for sure, they aren’t in my luggage and that’s all I’m taking away from Balaton right now as we head toward Pecs. Glasses equal gone. We’re about to visit all these awesome places, and I’m stuck with my prescription shades. But at least I have those – even if it means walking around the house, mall, and movie theatre like a hung-over starlet with these dramatic black sunglasses.

Number Three – I broke my father-in-law’s air mattress! Again, by the time he discovers this I am hoping to be out of the country.

Some people report chemo brain after having gone through chemotherapy – it’s a very real problem that seems to creep up and then simply not go away; your ability to remember things is greatly affected. If you want to learn more about chemo brain you should check out AnneMarie’s blog – aptly titled, “chemobrain” and just google search the term in general. I think this is one of the side effects they don’t necessarily warn you about (in addition to the one about chemo possibly killing your sex life) before you sign that waver and agree to the treatment course.

However, in my case, I can only blame it on genetics. Absentmindedness has been my middle name (a really long middle name) since I can remember.

So if you ever want to ask me why I dropped that tissue and didn’t pick it up, or why I left the light on, or why the front door is open a tiny bit . . . don’t bother, because I won’t tell you the real answer. Instead I’ll say aliens forced me to discard the tissue as an experiment in entropy, or the light turned itself on and we may have a poltergeist problem, or the wind knocked at the door but no one answered and so it let itself in.

Number Four – I really did have a lovely time in Balaton. The allergies weren’t horrible. The water was warm. I napped with my husband. We watched the Olympics. I did a little work. And the sunsets were beautiful. These little worries and expense-causing mistakes seem to follow me around everywhere . . . but nevertheless, I was quite absentmindedly happy to be on a mini-vacation, and forget, just for a little while, about the bigger worries of life.

P.S. I’m sipping on a pear-flavoured beer while riding this Hungarian train. Take that Canada! I’m drinking in public! Wooohooo! Life is just so crazy sometimes.  🙂